Life Measured in Aspirin
by One Raindrop Raises the Sea
Summary: Headache: two aspirin. Cramps: four aspirin. Trapped in a broom closet with known enemy, Draco Malfoy: spare the counting and give me the bottle!


"Alright, let's wrap things up for today!" Angelina announced far above the majority of the Gryffindor team whom were either climbing off their brooms or just about to. Their captain worked them to the bone this afternoon. In fact Ginny, who could hours on end, demonstrate her athletic prowess felt mentally and physically exhausted from the repetitive exercises, endless flight drills, and, to Ginny specifically, locating a small object in constant movement with little help from the sun which decided to lazily lounge behind a thick layer of clouds. The redheaded girl cursed at the slacker sun which then promptly released a massive amount of water from its fort of clouds. The sun is a bitch.

Just how ants responded when their hill had been stepped on, the students all ran in different directions, some even screaming as they went. Wet bodies tried to keep from getting wetter using futile methods such as raising a hand above their head or even a broom. Subconsciously, Ginny knew that this whole situation was ludicrous; she hasn't once heard of someone dying because they were rained on. Yet, Ginny's instincts told her to participate in the nonsensical social behavior of panicking when caught in bad weather and made a beeline to the broom cupboard across the pitch.

The door to the broom closet appeared worn and flimsy which caused Ginny to fear that it would be useless in protecting her from the storm, alas, as part of the social conventions stated above, one could not think logically during a storm; one must act on the presumption that a door is always a good sign. So in she went.

It turned out to be a surprisingly good insulator from the storm. She couldn't feel a hint of wetness from the outside; however, it was cold and dark. Those were two things that also cause panic in the human mind. And such panic caused the human mind to want to get the hell out of there because a dark, eerie broom closet is a recipe for a brutal crime or a strange paranormal event. However, the young Weasley's Gryffindorness wouldn't allow it. It was the voice that said, "Hey, jumping off this bridge with a thin rope for its suspension doesn't sound safe but, golly, it sure does sound fun!" In Ginny's case, it compelled her to take a step forward on to something squishy yet firm.

"Ouch!" a voice yelped that she presumed was the squishy-firm-thing. She jumped backwards as it said, "_Lumos_."

With the help of the light, she found that the squishy-firm-thing was in fact a shoe. And the shoe was worn by the true owner of the voice, Draco Malfoy.

Ginny's mouth fell agape. Out of all the broom sheds she could after wondered into—to be precise there are two – she found herself in the one with the most hated student of Hogwarts. He looked at her with a similar expression, but his quickly dissolved into a sneer.

"What are _you_ doing here, _Weasley_?" he scoffed.

"I-"Ginny's mind raced for an explanation that wasn't 'I was running from the rain'. Instead, she responded by raising her broom up.

"It seems you have the same speech capacity as your brother." he replied with a risen brow.

Ginny flushed as she gave the pasty boy a look of sheer hatred. If he wasn't bad mouthing her family's wealth, it was their intellect—she should mention that this claim is completely and entirely false; what they lacked in money they surely made up with intellect, with an exception of Ron. Her mother would tell her to think little of it; he was a sad, pathetic boy who was raised by a vicious man and she should pity him for it. Perhaps it's time to give her mother's theory the good college effort…

"Well, what are _you _doing here, Malfoy?" she asked, crossing her arms to refrain from hitting him. That wiped the haughty look from his face as he glanced around nervously as if a good comeback was on one of the walls.

"T-that's none of your business!" he said after a significant amount of time passed without an answer. Upon Ginny's face sprung a Cheshire Cat grin. She smelled weakness and, call it her inner-Slytherin if you must, there is no way she wouldn't exploit it.

"Why would a Slytherin be lurking around a broom shed during a Gryffindor practice? Do you have a fetish for Gryffindor girls on brooms?" she said mockingly. But then she did realize why a Slytherin would want to be within view of a Gryffindor practice and she cursed herself for not realizing it earlier. "You were spying on us, weren't you! Trying to learn our tactics before the game!" Her face turned roughly the same shade as her hair and Draco would have sworn on his life that he saw steams of smoke spewing from her ears.

"I don't have to take this." grumbled Draco as he shoved past her to get to the one thing that could save him from the redhead's fury. Unfortunately for him, that one thing refused to open. He turned the knob once more to no avail, after which he tried to slam into such door causing nothing but pain.

"Why won't it open?" he asked her while rubbing his shoulder.

"Me no know. I is Weasley." she said with her arms crossed.

He rolled his eyes, "Haha, funny. What a comic we have here. Now open the door."

"Door what door?" She pointed to her broom, "Is door?"

"LISTEN, I'M SORRY I IMPLIED YOU WERE STUPID. NOW, OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!" he shouted.

Ginny gave him a smirk and wink before saying, "Don't worry, _little girl_, I'll get the mean, bad door open." She jostled the knob. It remained shut. She added a second hand in her attempts, yet it still wouldn't budge. She gave Draco a confused look and desperately said, "Why won't it open?"

Instead of a panicked look Ginny expected to be blatantly expressed on his face, Draco said in a strangely calm manner, "You mean to say that you weren't cause of this?"

"N-no."

"So that door is stuck on its own accord?" he asked with the same style.

"I suppose so…"

Minutes passed as Draco stared with a nerve-wrecking expression while she tried to keep her eyes looking anywhere but his own. However, this proved to be difficult as he mastered the ability to stare. Sounds like a petty skill, but in reality it does more than winning childish contests. Ginny had a feeling that he'd be a decent Auror; even she, as innocent as she was, felt the need to confess to some horrible crime.

Finally he yelled, "I REFUSE TO BE STUCK IN A STINKING CLOSET, UNSUITABLE FOR HUMAN LIFE!"

With that outburst, she immediately rethought his options for future career choices. Sighing, Ginny said, "I think your opinion has little influence on the situation."

Her comment earned her a glare. "Neanderthal! Why don't you take that miserable example of a "broom" and go knock the door down!" he demanded.

"Excuse me? 'Neanderthal'?" yelled Ginny as she unsheathed her fists. Draco noticed this causing him to retreat into one of the corners of the small room and slumped down, obviously defeated. She did the same on the opposite side. They remained silent for a while; neither of them had the energy or will power to remain fighting and neither had a suitable idea for getting out.

But after several minutes, Ginny's Gryffindorness, which commanded her to never give up in a seemly impossible or dire situation, rejuvenated and she started throwing ideas off to Draco.

"We could use magic?" she tried.

"All broom closets are resistant to magic to keep the brooms from sustaining any damage."

"Why don't we try making more noise? Someone is bound to hear us!"

"What's the point? Everyone is inside when it's pouring this badly."

"Why don't you come up with a better idea then." she snapped.

"We wait _in silence_ until help arrives, keeping to our respectable sides." He drew an imaginary line with his wand from one wall of the room to the other. She looked at such line blankly and kept her eyes on it for the next hour. She would be lying if she didn't say it was dull, but the rhythmic sound of the rain hitting the roof calmed her nerves. At what she assumed was the hour and a half mark she grew bored of tracing the line and glanced up to see what Draco was doing. Her eyes met with his which caused him to quickly glance downward.

Dubiously, she said, "Were you staring at me the entire time?"

"N-no, don't be stupid." he replied. Ginny wasn't sure if it was the faint glow of the spell playing tricks on her, but perhaps she saw a blush on the Slytherin boy's face.

Silence returned to the room. This time it was short lived, and the one to interrupt it was the one who commanded it in the first place.

"I was watching the Gryffindor team practice." he blurted out.

"Really?" she said; her words laced with sarcasm.

"You were pretty good out there." he said in the most nonchalant manner he could muster, "You're a decent flyer."

Ginny stared at him in disbelief. The claustrophobic nature of the room must be playing tricks on her; similar to an illusion of the walls closing in! Or perhaps the person disguising as Draco was really one of her brothers under the influence of polyjuice as a nasty prank. After all, the real Draco would never, in this life time or the next, compliment anyone, above all a Weasley.

"Er, thanks." she said, thinking of something nice to say back in case this wasn't some delusion. After all, she couldn't allow _herself_ to be the rude one. "You aren't very good at flying." she blurted out, thinking it hadn't left her head.

He rolled his eyes, "Gee, thanks."

"But," her mind racing for alternatives, "You're kind of handsome, but you'd look much better with a tan and a personality of a decent human being."

Just as his eyes brightened up, her stomach sank. She could not believe she admitted that Draco Malfoy had any good qualities, nonetheless say that he was attractive.

"Do you fancy me or something?" he asked with a grin plastered across his face; Ginny wanted to smack off his face that very moment.

She rolled her eyes, "Oh, you wish."

He abandoned his corner and cross the invisible line, which Ginny thought deserved some punishment for breaking their unwritten contract. His side was the one without a door and she hoped he would be legally obliged to spend the rest of his life there. After all, it would make the school so much of a better place. And during her long internal monologue he crouched down in front of the redhead.

"Will you go out with me?" asked Draco.

She jolted back slightly, causing the floor to creak under her. "No, now get back to your side." she responded feeling her patience rapidly vanishing.

"Ginny, I mean it." he said with a solemn expression. Ginny felt as if her face was on fire. Would she say yes? COULD she say yes? After all, this is Draco Malfoy: the foulest of all gits. But even the fact that he called her by her first name signified that he could change or perhaps that he was in a process of changing.

"Really?" she asked in a manner that sounded pathetic even to her. Her pulse grew louder and more sporadic as she anxiously waited for his response.

"Yeah, you are the school's harlot after all." he said in all seriousness, "I have to date you _sometime_ in my Hogwart's career."

Screw the "everyone can change; he's really a good person" shit. It was time to abandon Mother's method and move on to Father's. She curled up her fists and swung a punch right at his pasty nose.

But at that moment, when Malfoy's nose gushed with blood and Ginny's arm was still stretched out, did Murphy's Law enact itself and the door knob turned to reveal Madam Hooch. Ginny blankly looked at the woman who studied the incriminating scene. By then, Malfoy had resulted into a state of sobbing which signified that Ginny could not escape by saying, "It was an accident; he ran into my fist!"

Instead she looked her teacher straight in the eye and said calmly, "You should really get that door fixed."

* * *

><p>Author's Note: What started out as a fluffy GinnyDraco romance one-shot idea resulted into this. I really don't know what came over me, but I suppose you can blame pulling an all nighter to adjust my sleep cycle. I realize that this isn't very well written and probably laced with grammatical mistakes, but I apologize for that and hope you can semi-enjoy this.

Author's Note (v2): Written in high school, revised in college. Makes me feel like shit that my writing was better three years ago than it is now, but I guess I am just out of practice. (Or reached my peak too soon!) Regardless, I think I will revive this shitty little one-shot. Maybe expect to see more?


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